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pathos that thrills the soul, and no kindling energy that fires the imagination."

In society, few men are said to be more agreeable in manners and conversation than the venerable subject of this memoir. "He has been enabled to cultivate his favorite tastes, to enrich his house in St. James' Park with some of the finest and rarest pictures, busts, books, and gems, and to entertain his friends with a generous and unostentatious hospitality. His conversation is rich and various, abounding in wit, eloquence, shrewd observation, and interesting personal anecdote. He has been familiar with almost every distinguished author, orator, and artist for the last fifty years. His benevolence is equal to his taste; his bounty soothed and relieved the death-bed of Sheridan, and is now exerted to a large extent, annually, in behalf of suffering or unfriended talent."

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS.

Twilight's soft dews steal o'er the village green,
With magic tints to harmonize the scene;
Still'd is the hum that through the hamlet broke,
When round the ruins of their ancient oak
The peasants flock'd to hear the minstrel play,
And games and carols closed the busy day.
Her wheel at rest, the matron thrills no more
With treasured tales and legendary lore.
All, all are fled; nor mirth nor music flows
To chase the dreams of innocent repose.
All, all are fled; yet still I linger here!
What secret charms this silent spot endear!

Mark you old mansion, frowning through the trees,
Whose hollow turret woos the whistling breeze.
That casement, arch'd with ivy's brownest shade,
First to these eyes the light of heaven convey'd.
The mouldering gateway strews the grass grown court,
Once the calm scene of many a simple sport,
When nature pleased, for life itself was new,
And the heart promised what the fancy drew.

Childhood's loved group revisits every scene,
The tangled wood-walk and the tufted green!
Indulgent Memory wakes, and lo, they live!
Clothed with far softer hues than Light can give,
Thou first, best friend that Heaven assigns below
To soothe and sweeten all the cares we know;
Whose glad suggestions still each vain alarm,
When nature fades and life forgets to charm;
Thee would the Muse invoke !-to thee belong
The sage's precept and the poet's song.

Chambers' Cyclopædia."

What soften'd views thy magic glass reveals,

When o'er the landscape Time's meek twilight steals!
As when in ocean sinks the orb of day,
Long on the wave reflected lustres play;
Thy temper'd gleams of happiness resign'd
Glance on the darken'd mirror of the mind.

The school's lone porch, with reverend mosses gray,
Just tells the pensive pilgrim where it lay.
Mute is the bell that rung at peep of dawn,
Quickening my truant feet across the lawn;
Unheard the shout that rent the noontide air,
When the slow dial gave a pause to care.
Up springs, at every step, to claim a tear,
Some little friendship form'd and cherish'd here,
And not the lightest leaf but trembling teems
With golden visions and romantic dreams!

Pleasures of Memory.

HISTORIC ASSOCIATIONS.

Thus kindred objects kindred thoughts inspire,
As summer-clouds flash forth electric fire.
And hence this spot gives back the joys of youth,
Warm as the life, and with the mirror's truth.
Hence homefelt pleasure prompts the patriot's sigh;
This makes him wish to live and dare to die.
For this young Foscari, whose hapless fate
Venice should blush to hear the Muse relate,
When exile wore his blooming years away,
To sorrow's long soliloquies a prey,
When reason, justice vainly urged his cause,
For this he roused her sanguinary laws;
Glad to return, though Hope could grant no more,
And chains and torture hail'd him to the shore.

And hence the charms historic scenes impart;2
Hence Tiber awes and Avon melts the heart.

He was suspected of murder, and, at Venice, suspicion is good evidence. Neither the interest of the Doge, his father, nor the intrepidity of conscious innocence, which he exhibited in the dungeon and on the rack, could procure his acquittal. He was banished to the Island of Candia for life. But here his resolution failed him. At such a distance from home he could not live; and, as it was a criminal offence to solicit the intercession of a foreign prince, in a fit of despair he addressed a letter to the Duke of Milan, and intrusted it to a wretch whose perfidy, he knew, would occasion his being remanded a prisoner to Venice.

"Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and far from my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue.

That man

is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plains

Aerial forms in Tempe's classic vale

Glance through the gloom and whisper in the gale;
In wild Vaucluse with love and Laura dwell,
And watch and weep in Eloisa's cell.
'Twas ever thus. As now at Virgil's tomb
We bless the shade and bid the verdure bloom:
So Tully paused, amid the wrecks of Time,'
On the rude stone to trace the truth sublime;
When at his feet, in honor'd dust disclosed,
The immortal Sage of Syracuse reposed.
And as he long in sweet delusion hung,
Where once a Plato taught, a Pindar sung,
Who now but meets him musing when he roves
His ruin'd Tusculan's romantic groves?

In Rome's great forum, who but hears him roll
His moral thunders o'er the subject soul?

And hence that calm delight the portrait gives:
We gaze on every feature till it lives!

Still the fond lover sees the absent maid;
And the lost friend still lingers in his shade!
Say why the pensive widow loves to weep,
When on her knee she rocks her babe to sleep:
Tremblingly still, she lifts his veil to trace
The father's features in his infant face.
The hoary grandsire smiles the hour away,
Won by the raptures of a game at play;
He bends to meet each artless burst of joy,
Forgets his age, and acts again the boy.

What though the iron school of War erase
Each milder virtue and each softer grace;
What though the fiend's torpedo-touch arrest
Each gentler, finer impulse of the breast;
Still shall this active principle preside,
And wake the tear to Pity's self denied.

The intrepid Swiss, who guards a foreign shore,
Condemn'd to climb his mountain-cliffs no more,
If chance he hears the song so sweetly wild
Which on those cliffs his infant hours beguiled,
Melts at the long-lost scenes that round him rise,
And sinks a martyr to repentant sighs.

Ask not if courts or camps dissolve the charm:
Say why Vespasian loved his Sabine farm?

Why great Navarre,2 when France and freedom bled,
Sought the lone limits of a forest-shed?

of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona."

Johnson.

"When Cicero was quæstor in Sicily, he discovered the tomb of Archimedes by its mathematical inscription." Tusc. Quast. v. 3.

2

"That amiable and accomplished monarch, Henry the Fourth of France, made an excursion from his camp, during the long siege of Laon, to dine at a

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When Diocletian's self-corrected mind1
The imperial fasces of a world resign'd,
Say why we trace the labors of his spade,

In calm Salona's philosophic shade?

Say, when contentious Charles renounced a throne,2
To muse with monks unlettered and unknown,
What from his soul the parting tribute drew?
What claim'd the sorrows of a last adieu?
The still retreats that soothed his tranquil breast
Ere grandeur dazzled and its cares oppress'd.

The same.

PLEASURES OF MEMORY.

Sweet Memory, wafted by thy gentle gale,
Oft up the stream of Time I turn my sail,
To view the fairy haunts of long-lost hours,
Blest with far greener shades, far fresher flowers.

Ages and climes remote to thee impart
What charms in Genius and refines in Art;
Thee, in whose hand the keys of Science dwell,
The pensive portress of her holy cell;
Whose constant vigils chase the chilling damp
Oblivion steals upon her vestal-lamp.

The friends of Reason and the guides of Youth,
Whose language breathed the eloquence of Truth;
Whose life, beyond preceptive wisdom, taught
The great in conduct and the pure in thought;
These still exist3 by thee to Fame consign'd,
Still speak and act, the models of mankind.

house in the forest of Folambray, where he had often been regaled, when a boy, with fruit, milk, and new cheese, and in revisiting which he promised himself great pleasure."

Mem. de Sully.

"Diocletian retired into his native province, and there amused himself with building, planting, and gardening. His answer to Maximian is deservedly celebrated. He was solicited by that restless old man to reassume the reins of government and the imperial purple. He rejected the temptation with a smile of pity, calmly observing, That if he could show Maximian the cabbages which he had planted with his own hands at Salona, he should no longer be urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for the pursuit of power.'

Gibbon.

2" When the Emperor Charles V. had executed his memorable resolution, and had set out for the monastery of St. Justus, he stopped a few days at Ghent," says his historian, "to indulge that tender and pleasant melancholy which arises in the mind of every man in the decline of life, on visiting the place of his nativity, and viewing the scenes and objects familiar to him in his early youth."

Robertson.

There is a future existence even in this world, an existence in the hearts

From thee sweet Hope her airy coloring draws;
And Fancy's flights are subject to thy laws.
From thee that bosom-spring of rapture flows,
Which only Virtue, tranquil Virtue, knows.

When Joy's bright sun has shed his evening ray,
And Hope's delusive meteors cease to play;
When clouds on clouds the smiling prospect close,
Still through the gloom thy star serenely glows;
Like yon fair orb, she gilds the brow of night
With the mild magic of reflected light.

The beauteous maid, who bids the world adieu,
Oft of that world will snatch a fond review;
Oft at the shrine neglect her beads to trace
Some social scene, some dear familiar face;
And ere, with iron tongue, the vesper-bell
Bursts through the cypress-walk, the convent-cell,
Oft will her warm and wayward heart revive,
To love and joy still tremblingly alive;
The whisper'd vow, the chaste caress prolong,
Weave the light dance and swell the choral song;
With rapt ear drink the enchanting serenade,
And, as it melts along the moonlight glade,
To each soft note return as soft a sigh,

And bless the youth that bids her slumbers fly.
But not till Time has calm'd the ruffled breast
Are these fond dreams of happiness confest.
Not till the rushing winds forget to rave
Is Heaven's sweet smile reflected on the wave.
From Guinea's coast pursue the lessening sail,
And catch the sounds that sadden every gale.
Tell, if thou canst, the sum of sorrows there;
Mark the fix'd gaze, the wild and frenzied glare,
The racks of thought, and freezings of despair!
But pause not then-beyond the western wave,
Go, view the captive barter'd as a slave!
Crush'd till his high heroic spirit bleeds,
And from his nerveless frame indignantly recedes.
Yet here, even here, with pleasures long resign'd,
Lo! Memory bursts the twilight of the mind.
Her dear delusions soothe his sinking soul

When the rude scourge assumes its base control;

and minds of those who shall live after us. It is in reserve for every man, however obscure; and his portion, if he be diligent, must be equal to his desires. For in whose remembrance can we wish to hold a place but such as know and are known by us? These are within the sphere of our influence, and among these and their descendants we may live evermore.

It is a state of rewards and punishments; and, like that revealed to us in the Gospel, has the happiest influence on our lives. The latter excites us to gain the favor of God, the former to gain the love and esteem of wise and good men, and both lead to the same end; for, in framing our conceptions of the Deity, we only ascribe to Him exalted degrees of wisdom and goodness.

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